


The Obsidian Key

by chains_archivist



Category: The Key Game (Unofficial), Tokyo Babylon
Genre: Boys in Chains, Key Game, Lime, M/M, Slaves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3707767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chains_archivist/pseuds/chains_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>by Kristine Huntsman</p><p> Seishirou is bored and decides to impersonate a 'key' but finds that his 'owner' is someone he knows only too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Dusk, the archivist: this work was originally archived at [Boys in Chains](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Boys_in_Chains), which opened in 2000 as a multifandom archive for both fiction and art, but then sadly went offline in 2005. To bring the archive back, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2014. Open Doors [posted an announcement](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/1832) and e-mailed all creators about the move, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please [contact the Open Doors committee](http://transformativeworks.org/contact/open%20doors).

  
The key was black-lacquered, finely wrought in steel, and it was heavy. It was strung on a satin cord that was the right length to use as a necklace. Also attached to the cord and key was a chunk of black, shiny rock. When held up to the light, or felt with a finger, the conchoidal fracture of the smooth surface was rather soothing. It was a stone known as obsidian, a chunk of black volcanic glass. It was from the stone attached to it that the key drew its name: the obsidian key. One edge of the stone was sharp, very sharp. He had absolutely no idea what the key opened. All he knew was that it had come to him in part of the same package as his payment for the most recent exorcism he'd done.  
  
//Sumeragi-san,// the note inside had read, //I can in no way thank you enough for giving my brother's spirit rest. In addition to the financial payment enclosed, I give you this key. Please do not treat it lightly - it is very rare and usually very expensive to become the holder of one of these keys. It belonged to my brother last, and I believe he would like you to have it. I have alerted the appropriate people as to its change of hands, and they shall be in touch with you shortly. Again, you have my eternal gratitude.//  
  
Shortly after he had received the package (no more than half an hour, in fact), he had answered his telephone, and a voice had given him instructions to activate the key. Two people, a young man and a young woman, had arrived at his door and escorted him to a waiting car, and then to Narita Airport. A private jet had been waiting, and now they were flying south to somewhere. He held the key in his hands, felt the stone warm for him, and did not think. The plane flew on.  
  
Inside the black room, the obsidian room, Seishirou waited. Life had reached another peak of boredom for him, so he had decided to indulge himself and have a small adventure. He had learned of this place several years ago from the mind of one of his victims, a fat old politician with a taste for child molestation. The idea of visiting the Palace had intrigued him at the time, and for a while after, but then the matter with the other onmyouji (ah, cute Subaru-kun - Seishirou wondered how he was doing now) had come up and distracted him for a bit of time. By the end of that affair, the inclination to visit had been put out of his mind. But in his recent spate of boredom, he had suddenly remembered the place, and decided to amuse himself even more. Better than going as a client - why didn't he try to be there as an "employee"? It would definitely be more interesting. And heaven knew he could play the role. And now his first "master" was arriving. Seishirou smiled. He had, during preliminary auditions and his training, affected the persona that had been so effective in his life, and others'. He was simply known as "Sei," or "cause," the slave with the cute personality and willingness to learn. It was a diminutive of his real name, taken from the one Subaru's sister had given to him, and substituted with a different meaning. Officially, though, his name was "Sakura." That was the only name his master would know him by. He didn't look quite himself either. A slight, constant extension of his maboroshi gave him another look than his true age. Rather than being thirty-one, he appeared just on the cusp of adulthood - nineteen or twenty, perhaps. Apparently most of the clients here preferred younger men. There was nothing to be done about the fact that his eyes didn't quite match... the illusion wouldn't quite extend to that, nor did Seishirou want it to.  
  


* * *

  
  
Subaru looked at the door before him, one decorated with a huge chunk of obsidian within the intricate carvings. It was just one of a hundred doors here, all of them decorated with different carvings and gems. He looked closely at the richly decorated door, and felt an insane hatred-pleasure in the sight of the blossoms that covered it. Cherry blossoms. Always... cherry blossoms.   
  
"Sir?" The young boy by his side bowed respectfully. "The room has been fully prepared for you. Sakura waits inside for you. Anything you wish, you have only to ask for."   
  
"Thank you," Subaru murmured, feeling that moment of reaction inside himself freeze and shatter, destroyed at the touch of the real world to him. "That will be all."   
  
The boy bowed again, then scampered away as Subaru inserted the key into the lock.   
  
"Sakura?" Probably the name of the slave waiting inside for his "pleasure." He had asked about his destination of the attendant on the plane and gotten that much assembled out of her answer. This was a place where slavery was apparently still practiced. He wasn't interested. The door opened before him, and he noted only that the darkness inside was like the whirling black infinity of space. He didn't care; all he wanted, after the hours of flight, was sleep. He slipped his shoes off as the door shut, leaving them by the entrance, and walked over the the bed. It was at least three meters in length and width, and dressed in black satin sheets. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. He didn't see the slavegirl, and quite frankly he would be quite happy if it continued that way. Dropping his duffel bag by the bedside, Subaru climbed on top of the bed and curled up in a very small space, still wearing his clothes. Heartsick and weary, he closed his eyes and very quickly fell asleep.  
  


* * *

  
  
From his place cloaked in darkness, Seishirou moved to the bedside, surprised beyond all belief. His "master"... was Subaru-kun?! Obviously, some deity had seen his boredom and acted in a way that promised to nullify it for a long time. He stood beside the bed watching the onmyouji, thinner now, taller, and dressed in clothes that were so forgettable Hokuto-chan would have died (well, perhaps she had) before letting her brother wear them, breathe in and out in sleep. Slowly a smile curved Seishirou's lips. This promised to be most fun. Correction to credits from last time: Tash, Maruta, Ondine, and Ayano all get credit for composing various things used in this fic.


	2. Chapter 2

Through the darkness, a pair of eyes. Honey-gold, with blue stars shining out of them, watching him, always watching, always smiling. A silver flash, then, a slash of metal that cut, and pain, and redness, and he woke seeing that one damaged eye, milky-white, paired with the other and still smiling. Opening his eyes, Subaru found he was awake. The hurtling rush out of his nightmares was almost always disorienting to him for a few heartbeats, so he missed the faint smoke of incense for a moment, and the white candles that guttered low gold around the room. His hand hurt as he looked at the candle nearest him, and he uncurled it from where it was curled around the obsidian stone. He felt the blood start to flow onto the blackness of the soft cloud of bedding beneath him as the cutting edge was dislodged from the gash it had made in his palm. The pain rose like slow sap up through the heel of his hand, then his wrist, then into his forearm. It stopped there, a dull throbbing pulse of pain while the heat and wet stickiness flowed out of his hand. He closed his eyes and didn't care anymore, sick of life and the world and himself. Warm fingers closed around Subaru's wrist then, a thumb pressing against the vein in the center as his arm was lifted and a warm mouth closed on the gash, a tongue lancing the cut with tiny darts of pain as it swept back and forth, lapping up the blood.   
  
"I'll get in trouble if you get injured, you know," a soft voice said as the mouth momentarily left the cut. Subaru's eyes opened slowly as the boy returned to ministering to the wound. A cloud of soft, dark hair was all he could see; the other person was swathed in layers of soft darkness that matched the infinity of the room.   
  
"Who are you?" he mumbled carelessly.   
  
The boy paused, lifting his head away from the cut once more, though again his face did not rise to Subaru's view. "I am Sakura," he replied, "your slave.  
  
Sakura is a girl's name," Subaru said, mind absent as that thing which was so very like sleep sometimes came closer to him. "And it is mine... Sumeragi-sama.  
  
"Just... Subaru," he corrected as his eyes closed and he ceased to feel his injured palm, or the stars carved on the backs of his hands, and even the constant pain of his self fell away, "...sa..ku..r...."  
  
Seishirou, known as Sei, known as Sakura, smiled as he watched his young owner sleep. "So cute, Subaru-sama," he whispered before setting his mouth again to the bleeding cut.   
  
One by one the candles in the room winked out as he sat in that position, just holding Subaru's hand and looking with pleasure on the face and form of his prey-cum-owner, noting the small changes, the differences that told so much more than Subaru knew. What had been attractively slender before was hardly more than skin stretched over bone and vein now, the body almost emaciated underneath those loose gray sweats. Seishirou bet he would be able to define quite clearly the shape of each rib and Subaru's pelvic bones as well were he to examine him. Without Hokuto-chan to make sure he ate, apparently Subaru-kun was wasting away to nothing. <And when you do remember to eat - what, once, twice a week, maybe? - I'll bet it's most certainly not nutritious enough for your growing body, Subaru-kun.> <Or do you do this to yourself deliberately, as part of a punishment?> Seishirou shook his head.   
  
Either way, he was going to have to see about that. It wouldn't do at all for Subaru to die of malnutrition before they confronted one another again. And above the thinness of the cheeks, the blue touches to the fair skin beneath the eyes worried him. <And overwork too. You're nothing but a thread, Subaru-kun. That much despair, that much compliance with your own death before even finding me again - that's unlike you.> <I'll have to do something about all of this.> And the last few of the candles guttered out obligingly slow, leaving just enough dim light for Seishirou to see by as he moved onto the bed as well before their light vanished entirely. He moved behind the Sumeragi and held him, still grasping the wrist of that injured hand and restricting the blood flow for a bit more, until the clotting was secure. <You're certainly not responsible enough to care for yourself.>  
  
The morning had passed rather quietly, Subaru still sleeping and the darkness of the room soothing Seishirou's wakefulness into something approaching a trance state. He'd bandaged Subaru's self-inflicted wound without waking the young onmyouji and retreated into his own thoughts, simply planning for and anticipating Subaru's reaction when he awoke. Such things as Seishirou's mismatched eyes, and general looks, and even the name he was known by - oh, such things as those would definitely put Subaru-kun on his guard. So Seishirou had been building a little wall for himself, constructing an airtight personality shell to hide behind when he would need to. Even the best of the Sumeragi's probes wouldn't be able to tell it from an actual person. So for a little while, just for Subaru-kun, Seishirou was going to forget himself and become Sakura. A faint noise from the bed woke him from the trance, and he stretched a little before going over to the bed, where he sat down beside the young man, watching him wake. The long, tapered fingers moved on the satin sheets as the eyelashes fluttered and Subaru's head moved a little from one side to the other. Then the slow blinks began, the lips parting and starting to move a little, and then finally full consciousness, the green eyes opening and looking around the strange room a bit fuzzily.   
  
"Good morning, Subaru-sama," "Sakura" said quietly. That snagged his master's attention and made him look up into Sakura's face. Subaru looked at his eyes first - most people did, but Subaru's reaction was different from most people's. Instead of pretending not to stare, he froze and his expression was horrified. Frightened.   
  
"Subaru-sama?" Sakura asked, taken aback by that reaction. Subaru moved faster than Sakura would have thought he could, across the large bed in a heartbeat and staring wildly across that new distance as Sakura.   
  
"Sakurazukamori..." he breathed, and there was fear there, and hatred too in that name.   
  
"Who?" Sakura asked, not knowing what his master was talking about. Subaru stared at him.


	3. Chapter 3

/It couldn't be./ Fear touched cold inside of Subaru, fear and hate and despair and, worst of all, that love that destroyed... destroyed everything. But the eyes across from him did not seem to understand that. The boy - Seishirou? - stared at him. The lips did not curve up in that gentle, mocking smile, the face gave no recognition, the stance held only confusion. "Who are you?" Subaru asked, trying to fight down what he felt, trying to be rational. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I am Sakura, Subaru-sama." The boy did not move, seeming cautious of his behavior. "I am your slave, to make use of as you wish for however long you choose to stay here. Have I done something wrong?" His eyes were worried, holding a tinge of fear - fear of punishment, perhaps? /What did they do to the slaves here, that the boy was scared he had done wrong?/ /Seishirou would never be afraid./ /Therefore, this was not Seishirou./   
  
"... No," Subaru said faintly, dropping his eyes to the bed. "No, you haven't, Sakura-san. You just reminded me of someone I... knew. It startled me, that's all." The boy was quiet for a moment, then asked, "Shall I order a breakfast for you, Subaru-sama?"  
  
"No, thank you," Subaru murmured. He looked at the bandage around his hand. "I'd just like to be alone for a little while, please." He heard a whisper of fabric as the boy made a bow.   
  
"As you wish, Subaru-sama. To summon me, simply pull on the cord hanging by the bed." Then he was gone and Subaru was alone. Subaru looked up and took in the room. It was so dark... everything was black. But that black was soothing, warm... it comforted. It was better than brightness that was too sharp in its own light. It was a womb, a night, a place of rest and rebirth. Subaru climbed back on the bed, still in the clothes he had worn on the plane trip over to wherever this place was. For the third time, he fell asleep and dreamed.  
  
Seishirou returned to the Obsidian Room after an hour of waiting and hearing no noise. As he had halfway expected, Subaru had crawled onto the bed and fallen asleep again. <First sleep, then food,> he agreed with Subaru's instincts. <I think you'll be hungry enough when you wake up, Subaru-kun, to want food.> He smiled to himself. <You are losing your edge, Subaru-kun. That's not the mark of a "pro."> He'd extended the merest of touches to Subaru's mind to make him believe that "Sakura" was not in the least related to Sakurazukamori. It had been appallingly easy; Subaru hadn't even noticed it. Seishirou hadn't even needed to use the shield personality he'd spent the morning constructing. A waste, that. But better overly cautious than discovered. The management might not be pleased if he and Subaru-kun came to blows on the premises.  
  
//The last of the tea poured out of the cup. It was empty when it hit the floor. It shattered into thirteen pieces. A boy with dark hair knelt down on the tatami, reaching a hand towards the shards. A gloved hand touched his, and he looked up. It was looking into a mirror. Two young men of the same age and height gazed at one another, violet eyes meeting green in confusion. A tear dropped into a pool of water between them, shifting in the way of truth, and the boy with the green eyes and gloves now faced a young woman with the same eyes and face as his own, she meeting his gaze seriously. Someone approached them and the boy looked up. A veterinarian with a charming smile looked at the twins, and the boy stood, reaching out his hand, smiling-- The veterinarian turned to dust and blew away in the wind. The boy looked around, but he was all alone in the darkness. He had lost the way home. //  
  
Subaru woke crying.  
  
  
To Be Continued.....


End file.
